19
votes
54 million US adults may be misdiagnosed with high blood pressure based on bad readings
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- Title
- Your doctor's office could be reading your blood pressure all wrong
- Published
- Oct 8 2024
- Word count
- 357 words
The title is a little hyperbolic. Doctors already know that blood pressure readings in the clinic aren’t very accurate; it tends to go up from the simple nervousness of getting it tested there. That’s why doctors take those readings with a grain of salt, and part of why when starting a blood pressure medication you must also start doing regular readings at home. They care more about wide fluctuations than they do about the specific accuracy of the test.
I’ma a doctor and this is 100% accurate.
Ok so I've been dealing with hypertension as a result of my ADHD meds recently and have been working on reducing it. I've heard all this about the readings being inaccurate before but my question is, if you have to go through all of this to measure your BP, surely this isn't the natural state of your blood pressure. There's rarely a time of day (other than sleeping) where I haven't eaten/drunk/exercised or had a full bladder in the last 30 minutes. Wouldn't it be most accurate to have a reading taken during your average state?
My psych NP told me to take my BP readings when I first get up in the morning. Sit on the edge of the bed, feet flat on the floor ideally, rest for a few minutes, then take it before you do anything else.
I ended up picking up running this summer since my BP wasn't going down after starting ADHD meds, and it's helped a lot. Even after some plain black coffee and nervousness at the doctors' office, it was 124/70, slightly elevated but not concerning to any of my doctors. They said to just keep an eye on it and keep doing what I'm doing.
Your story sounds exactly like mine, although I picked up running last year. Keep up with the running. It’s fantastic for your health and your ADHD symptoms. I haven’t been able to run in about 2 months right now, and it has certainly made my ADHD worse. Right now, UPS is majorly failing at delivering my new running shoes. Once I finally get those, I am excited to get back into it.
I hope your shoes get delivered soon so you can get back to it! I'm planning to keep up with it for the reasons you mentioned. I also do pole dance and train flexibility/beginning contortion (after a 6-month break due to shoulder injury). I've been really enjoying running getting me outside more often, especially as we get into this cooler weather. It's been so nice out and I finally get to really enjoy it.
Thanks! That’s interesting to hear about pole dancing. I’ve not looked into it very much, but it seems like it would take a ton of core strength. It sounds similar to aerial silks. I’ve always wanted to try silks, but never had the opportunity to.
Luckily I managed to get my shoes yesterday, and took a short 3.5k run today at lunch. It was wild how much better I felt after it. And it was instant: a few steps into my run and I was already feeling like myself again. I am looking forward to getting reasonable sleep tonight. For some reason, when I stop exercising, I stop being able to sleep enough.
I found out today about a marathon in Bordeaux they do every year. You run between a bunch of chateaus. Instead of water and Gatorade at the aid stations, they have wine and French foods. It sounds insane but absolutely fantastic. Registration is open for next year, and I’m considering signing up for it. It would mean I have to actually train pretty hard. I did a half marathon over the summer, but I’ve heard that full marathons take significantly more training.
FWIW, I've found off-label Guanfacine to be pretty affective at alleviating some of my worst ADHD symptoms. It's typically only done for kids, but my doctor was willing to test it out for me (at 40) because any stimulant would be risky for my particular flavor of bipolar.
It's originally a blood pressure management medication, so it could pull double-duty for you.
Also you are correct, you should measure your blood pressure the way you should your weight: Consistently, first thing in the morning after a pee. This will insure minimal external influences as to be able to get a good baseline to see changes due to medicines or what-have-you.
I'll ask my doctor about this next visit. I'm currently trying metopropolol which is a beta blocker and it seems to do the trick, but it sounds like you could be right about Guanfacine, and it may even be good to take in combination with Vyvanse from what I read on Google.
I use a combo of Adderall and Guanfacine (off label) to manage my ADHD. I also have anxiety, which has a tendency to spike my blood pressure and resting HR, and the Guanfacine has helped with that immensely over the last few years as well.
My psychiatrist also started me on it (as a late-diagnosed ADHDer) because I wasn't sure if I wanted to use stimulants, given my high HR, and it was awesome. But I found I needed more help, but wasn't willing to give up the Guanfacine lol.